A History Lesson from Aristotle

Among a great many ideas that have in one way or another influenced the arc of Western thought, one of Aristotle’s best (according to a presentation design firm) was the idea that true persuasion required a trifecta of Pathos, Logos and Ethos—that’s passion, evidence, and credibility (or character).

You almost hate to give the guy credit for the idea because it seems so obvious. All we have to do is think about our favorite teachers from high school or college and remember the way they taught. They had passion for the subject, a plethora of evidence to support their lessons, and a whole lot of credibility. And each fed upon the other.

But alas, it was Aristotle who put pen to paper first on this matter. That was the great thing about being a philosopher in the early days: no one had thought of anything yet.

Despite the fact that our firm’s name is Ethos3, none of these are more important than the others. In fact, these days, it can really seem like the most commonly missing element of a presenter’s pitch is the pathos. Where’s the passion? In the mainstream business world, this is the one people tend to play down, almost purposefully. It’s such a shame, because it makes us think of people working jobs they don’t care about.

Your logos comes from hard work. Presentations that lack it are miserable because you realize, halfway through, that the guy is just winging it. And ethos comes from constancy: have you stuck with something long enough to be considered a trustworthy source or authority on the matter?

But passion…passion comes from within. Passion comes from actively choosing not to temper your enthusiasm. We believe most people are passionate within, but that external pressures convince a lot of people to keep a lid on it. And granted, it’s hard to explain sometimes why you might be passionate about what those Excel spreadsheets really say about a business reality. But guess what’s harder to explain, especially to C-suite types? Not caring, or having an opinion.

There’s a premium these days on people who take ownership of their space. People who are accountable are hard to find. People who fight, who take time to build a case and argue it like something is really on the line—that’s rare. What we can get all day long is someone with a laundry list of degrees. We can get stats and data all day. But without passion, the message is dead on arrival.

And, truly, passion without the others is just lunacy. If you think about your own rise to success, or about that guy or girl in the office who is on a meteoric rise, it’s really about combining all three: pathos, logos, and ethos combined become perfectly persuasive. When someone has the heart, mind and faith to bring them all together, everybody wants to follow.

Question: Where’s your pathos? What about your logos? Your ethos? Which do you naturally fall back on?

Check out the Ethos3 original comic series, Busted, featuring Aristotle.





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